Wake Up
by oneiromancer242
Summary: AU one-shot : Peter waits by Erik's beside after he had been gravely injured in the battle with Apocalypse, and wishes he had managed to tell him he had a son. Angsty Sad!Dadneto for a reader prompt.


**A/N : A short little prompt fic whilst I work on the pile I have. For RogersBz14, who requests Peter's thoughts on having - and perhaps losing - the father he has only just found.**

With all the lights switched off, the glow of the monitor cast an eerie light over the face of the man in the bed, and the boy who sat beside him. It felt as though the two of them were floating in the darkness, adrift in a pool of greenish light and the soft sounds of the ventilator. Far removed from reality. Peter wished they were really drifting in some dreamy twilight zone, then he would not have to face this grim vigil.

They had carried Erik back onto the jet, surprising the boy with the care they had taken of someone who had until ten minutes ago been intent on destroying them and the world they stood on. Peter had not seen the falling masonry in time, not even known what had happened until it had all been over, and Hank had unearthed the battered body of his father from under the rubble, hefted him into his shoulder and taken him back with them. The boy cursed himself all the way back to Westchester. If he hadn't been caught in Apocalypse's grasp, if he hadn't had his leg broken, if he hadn't been such a stupid, hesitant kid and *told* the guy before any of this happened. It had taken the entire team to rip Peter's hands away from Erik's, pin him down to the floor of the jet and hold him with all their strength whilst Hank set his broken leg and arm. As soon as they had let him go he was back by Erik's side like a shot, ignoring the doctor's warning that he should rest, that the splint wouldn't stand up to walking too much, let alone running.

The leg was long healed now, probably able to stand up to whatever speed he chose, the arm too, though it ached sometimes when he was cold. None of that mattered to Peter, he'd been too busy keeping watch over his father to run or train or even really to move out of the chair. He would sleep there, slumped over resting his head on the bed, one hand still holding Erik's. Willing him to wake up, open his eyes and look at him so he could finally say _Hey Magneto? You're my Dad. Congratulations!_ It was starting to hurt his back, staying like that, and both his legs ached from underuse, but he still wouldn't leave. Hadn't even changed his clothes until Hank had brought him a fresh set and forced him to, would eat if someone put food in front of him but without pleasure and certainly not with anything like his usual appetite. Just sat, and watched, and waited, and dwelled.

It just wasn't fair, he thought. He'd never had a father – his mother had a boyfriend once, but that had swiftly ended after she had caught him threatening her son. She'd never even known where Erik was until that episode with the president, had answered her seventeen-year old son's questions honestly when he'd enquired about the man who could manipulate metal. Over the next decade he'd worked it out for himself, had tried to keep track of the man who didn't know he was his father, lost him for years until at last he'd seen him by the side of a God who was intent on destruction. Gone to Westchester not to help them fight or even to protect humanity, not from any noble desires but simply because he knew they would help him find Erik again. Then when he'd finally had the chance, he could hardly speak. He'd frozen up and said some bull about doing this for his family, and not been able to spit out the words he'd come all this way to say. Now Erik was hurt, might never wake up, and Peter still couldn't tell him.

It didn't seem too much to ask, to have a Dad. It wasn't like he wanted Erik to come home with him and play happy families with him and his mother, or anything like that – just to have the guy know that he had a son and that if he wanted, that son would be happy to be around him. He watched the even rise and fall of his chest, kept going as everything else was by one of the machines that crowded the room, and hated himself for not being able to tell him. Now he might have missed his chance, might go from having a father but not knowing him to not having one at all. That hurt far worse than any of the injuries he'd come away from the battle with, the idea that yet again he'd been too late and that the opportunity might never come again.

Nobody would have been able to tell him that he'd got to 27 without a father, and would probably be fine the rest of his life without one. That he was a grown man and could make his own way in the world perfectly well without a paternal hand to guide him. Now that he had Erik, it seemed vitally important that he at least tell him and let him make up his own mind about what he wanted to do about it. Even if he told him he didn't care, even if he walked out and Peter never saw him again, he felt it would kill him to not have told him. Though prepared for that eventuality, all this watching and waiting was giving him far too much time to think of all the reasons why Erik would probably not be happy to hear he had a son. He wasn't exactly a great kid, not the sort of boy that he thought the serious, sensible man would want to have fathered. Messy and uncontrollable and generally a nuisance, Peter didn't think of himself as the kind of guy Erik could love, but he still wanted to tell him. Didn't want to lose the father he'd only just found. So he would stay in this uncomfortable chair, and hold Erik's hand, and pray as best he could, waiting for the time when his father would wake up and he could finally tell him.

Until that time, however, all he had were his thoughts and too much time to brood on all the years he'd missed already, how badly he wanted to have at least a little time with his father now, how much he didn't want this man whom he hardly knew yet to die before he had a chance to know.

 **A/N : I won't be carrying this on, but rest assured that Erik will wake up and will be the sweetest Dadneto possible to his little boy!**


End file.
